Why are the contents of texts forgotten?

This situation is familiar to everybody: a pupil reads a paragraph from a textbook during the break and memorizes it. During the class lesson, he is asked to go to the blackboard and recount the text. The pupil reproduces the text hastily and receives his grade. But, what happens then? We know from our experience that, after some time, the contents of the text will be forgotten.

Another example: the speed of reading is being tested. How is it tested? The time one spends reading the text and the number of correct answers to questions concerning the text are measured. These two parameters are factored, then the general coefficient showing your speed of reading and the understanding of textual information is found. Yet, will the pupil be able to answer the same questions concerning the text in a week’s time? Possibly not. Often, the textual information is forgotten.

After a long period of time, say several years, the texts read will be forgotten in full. This means that an adult person who opens a history textbook feels like that he is seeing it for the first time, despite the fact that he read this textbook in school and reviewed it many times; he passed different tests and even exams.

So why is textual information so often forgotten?

Knowledge of memory mechanisms helps to answer this question. In the last update, we studied the mechanics for understanding textual information. Perceived words by reflex call forth visual images in our imagination. Visual images not only arise in imagination but, also, join together and are arranged into spatially organized combinations of images. The latter – unification of images in imagination – is of great importance for spontaneous, automatic memorization of textual information.

Mechanisms of intentional memorization in GMS® technique and mechanisms of automatic memorization of texts are completely the same. When memorizing a telephone number, for instance, GMS user transforms parts of the telephone number into visual images and intentionally joins them in his imagination. When he perceives a text, the images which arise in his imagination join together independently, under the influence of spatial operators of speech – prepositions, endings, verbs (“The book is in the suitcase.”). The result is the same. The images join together. The brain can remember only the connections.

When reading the text, the brain memorizes visual images which arise in the mind under the stimulating influence of words.

During recollection, a person remembers visual images; then, the connections switch on and other images connected with the text arise in his imagination. Consecutive recall of visual images helps the person recount the contents of the text he has read.

However, not all words are transformed into images automatically. Terms, names, notions, surnames, formulas, and numerical information are not transformed into images. That is why, even immediately after reading a text, the person can only retell it roughly without exact details which were found in the text.

The connections formed in the brain between visual images are very flexible. They get fixed in the brain very quickly – within one or two seconds – but they also get broken very quickly.

This effect is well known in GMS® system. If intentionally formed connections are not revised and consolidated, they break down in approximately one hour. This is the reason why the textual information we have read is forgotten. Connections between images formed automatically in the process of reading a text begin to break down in an hour but, after a week, there is nothing left of them. The fewer connections preserved in the brain, the fewer images the person can recollect. As a result, after complete breakage of connections, the person cannot remember the contents of the text he read even approximately. The text is forgotten completely. It sometimes seems that it has never been read before.

We teach intentional formation of connections – memorization. If a person cannot consolidate the connections formed in the brain automatically or intentionally, memorization is meaningless. It is important to learn to preserve these formed connections in the brain. Only then can the memorized text be reproduced in full, with precise reproduction of sequence of paragraphs and all information in each paragraph, including terms, surnames, names, and numerical information. The skill of consolidating the connections in the brain provides lifelong information retention.

The intentional use of the GMS® helps the person avoid “carrying coals to Newcastle,” i.e. when the acquired material must be re-learned again before exams.

The flexible mechanism of formation of connections between images is inconvenient for pupils and students – it is difficult to study with such a memory. Still, this mechanism is very important from biological point of view as it involves adaptation to the constantly changing circumstances of our surrounding environment.

If connections could be consolidated quickly and forever, people and animals would lose the ability to adapt and learn again. The brain does not consolidate accidental connections formed in the brain only once. They must be perceived and repeated many times for successful consolidation. In such a way, the brain eliminates accidental information and saves only information which is perceived many times.

So, how can we memorize information? Should we read a text many times and repeat the same movements for a long period of time? Yes. It is the way everybody learns. Small volumes of information necessary for work in some specialty are memorized with the help of long-term revision during the process of studies.

The GMS offers a more effective method for consolidating the connections in our brain. If the connections are revised through recollection, not via perception, they are consolidated very quickly and last for a long period of time. Still, to revise information from your memory, you first need to memorize it. Thus, we find a vicious circle... and only a specially focused memorization technique allows breaking it. Only acquisition of the skill allowing us to record connections in the brain intentionally that gives a person the ability to revise these connections through recollection and enjoy very fast and qualitative consolidation of that information in long-term memory.


© School of Phenomenal Memory